WND EXCLUSIVE

Tale of 2 surveys: What U.S. Muslims believe

Voting, candidates, 1st Amendment, death penalty for parodies of Muhammad all considered

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially.

In the WND/Wenzel poll of 600 American Muslims, 72 percent said they would support Obama, about 10 percent were for Romney and about 18 percent said they were uncertain, a category that would cover the WND/Wenzel poll’s three individual categories of not sure, leaning GOP and leaning Democrat.

Most of the other questions diverged greatly, with CAIR’s assessment addressing education levels for Muslims, their attendance at mosques and whether the U.S. should provide support to the rebels in Syria.

The groundbreaking scientific WND/Wenzel result, which was compiled several days before the CAIR survey by Wenzel Strategies, found that American Muslims consider mocking Muhammad so serious one in eight believes an offender should face the death penalty.

The WND/Wenzel survey was Oct. 22-26 and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.98 percentage points. The CAIR poll was done by Genesis Research Associations, with no date provided, and carries a margin of error of 5 percent.

The WND/Wenzel poll also found 40 percent of Muslims in America believe they should not be judged by U.S. law and the Constitution but by Shariah standards.

Nearly 55 percent of the American Muslim voters say the U.S. is on the right track, and another 13 percent are uncertain. Virtually all of the respondents (98 percent) are American citizens, and 97 percent are registered to vote.

“Almost half of those Muslims surveyed – an astonishing 46 percent – said they believe those Americans who offer criticism or parodies of Islam should face criminal charges,” said pollster Fritz Wenzel in an analysis of the survey’s results.

“Even more shocking: One in eight respondents said they think those Americans who criticize or parody Islam should face the death penalty, while another nine percent said they were unsure on the question,” he said.

Wenzel said even the 9 percent “undecided” on that particular question is alarming.

“Seldom in survey research does a response of ‘not sure’ carry such significance, but the response to this question certainly is a surprise, given the severity of the question, and offers insight into the conflict that some Muslims appear to face in making the ideals under-girding American society fit into their religious lifestyle,” he said.

In Wenzel’s poll, 7.2 percent of the respondents said they “strongly agree” with executing those who parody Islam, and another 4.3 percent said they somewhat agree.

While 80 percent said that they somewhat or strongly disagree with the idea, when those who said they were not sure are added, one in five Muslims across America cannot say they believe Christians or others who criticize Muhammad should be spared the death penalty.

More Muslim women (10.4 percent) than Muslim men (4.9 percent) said they strongly agree with the idea, while 12.4 percent of the women and 7.1 percent of the men were uncertain about the issue involving Muhammad.

Four in 10 said Muslims in America should be judged by Islamic law, Shariah.

“A much smaller percentage said they think the U.S. should establish an entirely separate court system to adjudicate matters involving Muslims,” Wenzel said.

In the WND/Wenzel survey, respondents overwhelmingly leaned toward the Democratic Party and like the direction Barack Obama, who repeatedly has praised Islam around the world, is leading the nation. They also have a fundamental conflict with American life, expressing objections to the freedom of speech and religion guaranteed in the Constitution.

In the CAIR poll, 66 percent said they are closer to the Democratic Party, while affiliation with the GOP was about 9 percent.

American Muslims, according to Wenzel’s poll, “show signs of ambivalence toward the U.S. Constitution generally and the First Amendment specifically.”

“These survey findings show a community in conflict with the foundations of our nation, as many Muslims favor and enjoy the freedoms offered by the U.S. Constitution, including participation in elections here, but at the same time significant percentages want to be treated differently than the average non-Muslim when it comes to legal matters,” he said.

“While 39 percent of Muslims said they believe existing U.S. courts should consult Shariah law when adjudicating cases involving Muslims, a plurality of 45 percent said they do not agree with this idea. Asked if the U.S. should establish separate courts based solely on Shariah law to adjudicate cases involving Muslim, 21 percent said it should. Two-thirds of respondents – 66 percent – said that separate courts are not necessary to adjudicate Muslims.”

While 9 of 10 of the Muslim respondents said they agree with the First Amendment, they are also in conflict with it, Wenzel said, citing evidence in answers to another question in the survey which found that one-third of Muslims – 32 percent – believe Shariah should be the supreme law of the land in the United States.”

“Another shocking finding from the survey is how Muslims view the religious freedoms of Christians. Asked whether U.S. citizens who are Christians have the right to evangelize Muslims to consider other faiths, just 30 percent agreed Christians have such a right. Another 42 percent said they do not have such a right, while 28 percent said they were unsure on the question.”

One in five say Muslim men should be allowed to follow their religion in America and have more than one wife, and 58 percent said criticism of their religion or of Muhammad should not be allowed under the Constitution.

While 43 percent said they disagreed with the idea of Christians evangelizing Muslims, another 27 percent said they were undecided. Only 19 percent said they “strongly agree” with the idea that Americans have a right to invite Muslims to consider another faith.

Nearly one in three said Israel either has no right to exist or they were uncertain whether it does.

“This should not surprise anyone,” he said. “There is no reason to believe that Muslims in the U.S. believe in a different form of Islam from that which prevails everywhere else. But it underscores the need for Americans to defend, forthrightly and without apology, the freedom of speech, as it is increasingly embattled today, and to revive and enact anti-Shariah laws nationwide.”

Spencer has authored 12 books on Islam and has led seminars about jihad for the United States Central Command, United States Army Command, the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force and others.

Pamela Geller, author of ”Stop the Islamization of America” and a WND columnist, said: “Restrictions on free speech are part of Shariah. This poll does nothing but show that Muslims in this country adhere to Shariah in large numbers. What is surprising is that the percentage of those who oppose free speech isn’t higher. But probably many of the respondents already know better than to say what they really think to non-Muslim pollsters.”

Walid Shoebat, who “used to be a radicalized Muslim willing to die for the cause of jihad” before he adopted Christianity in 1994, was a member of the PLO and was recruited to plant a bomb in Bethlehem. The author of ”God’s War on Terror” told WND it is not right that Muslims have a “double standard.”

He said to be fair, any Muslim who “says the Bible is corrupt or the Christians corrupted the Bible” should be penalized in the way they want to punish Christians who mock or ridicule Muhammad.

“The world should appreciate the way the West deals with hurt feelings,” he said, citing America’s rejection of a single individual who recently wanted to make an issue of burning a Quran.

“[Muslims] should be demonstrating how great America is,” he said. “They should be saying, ‘Allah bless America.'”

The Pew Research Center estimates America is home to some 2.6 million Muslims.

According to the CAIR survey, 91 percent of Muslim voters planned to go to polls. The top five issues of importance were jobs and the economy, education, health care policy, Medicare and Social Security, and civil rights. The CAIR poll found 35 percent have experienced religious or ethnic profiling or discrimination post-9/11; half of those polled attend a mosque at least once a month; and 70 percent say they have a four-year or graduate degree, compared to 34 percent college attendance for the entire population.